When it comes to any form of advertising - There are quite a few pitfalls that one can fall into. Very expensive pitfalls that is... Many of which could easily be avoided if someone who knew a few key things about consumer reactions were behind the creation of your ad. For this example lets take a look at two major mistakes from a radio commercial I just heard.

Mistake #1 - Too Cute. Being someone who makes radio commercials for a living, I naturally pay attention to all mistakes the average consumer would not notice when it comes to a radio commercial. The consumer would simply tune-out mentally and/or physically because of these costly mistakes. Problem number one with the commercial - It took 45 seconds to identify exactly what the radio commercial was for! What was even more shocking, this was a commercial for a national care repair chain. It wasn't "Chuck's Burger Stand". One would naturally expect that if a company as large as this would have top of the line radio commercials on the air - at the least - ones written by people who know what it takes to be effective! The front :45 seconds was a failed attempt at humor about a hair salon. Then it somehow made the "natural" shift to talking about car parts in the last :15 seconds.

There is nothing wrong with having a humor angle in the first 5-15 seconds of a commercial, but keep it at that: 5 to 15 seconds. I can guarantee about 98% of potential customers for this business mentally tuned out after the first 15 seconds. It went on, and on... and on... with no real point. By the time the radio commercial finally go to the auto parts message, you were trying to figure out what it was you just heard and completely missed the point of the radio commercial: Giving the consumer a reason to visit the store. There was absolutely no "reason" or "call to action" in this radio commercial. Which brings me to my second point.

Mistake #2 - No Call to Action. If you want to consumer to take action - and actually call your number, visit your store or log on to your website... You need to give them a reason! The little factoid that you simply "exist" is not a good enough reason. Make an offer that your competition is not - "Free consultation - a $100 value", "Free this or that just for calling or stopping in", "you will be entered to win a XXXX just for calling", "if you’re not happy, we will give you back your money plus some", "offer is for today only", "call in the next 10 mins and we'll give you XXXX free".... The options are endless! Just be sure the call to action is good! Simply saying take 10% off is NOT a strong call to action. It has to be a clear cut - "here is what I'm getting out of the deal" kind of offer.

Often times the consumer has no clue as to what your products or services cost. So the offer needs to be physical. If you sell products that cost $100 each - you are better off saying “take up to $50 off your total order today, limit 5". It’s the same as taking 10% off each item - up to 5. It sounds much more intriguing - while communicating the same message. When you only have :30 seconds or 3 lines to convey a message - you need to make every word count. So remember... Make the call to action count!

The take away from this article should simply be this - Be Real with your customers. Don't try to be too "cute" and don’t make a crappy offer or an offer they won’t really understand. Speak in their terms - not yours to make every second of your radio commercial count!

An effective marketing plan starts with an experienced marketing team. For a FREE MARKETING ANALYSIS and consultation contact us today at (231)468-9972 or email us here. Or visit http://www.bestradiocommercials.com/ and http://www.bestviralmedia.com/ . If we can ever be of help to your business, even if you just want to shoot some ideas around - Feel free to call us anytime.

Have you ever gotten into the car, battled traffic all the way across town, only to find that the store you were planning on shopping at was closed? You look down at the clock radio and it says "1:30" on a Sunday afternoon. You pause and think to yourself... ":Why on earth would they be closed right now? This has to be the most common time for customers to shop here!"

I see this all too often, often times from businesses that are struggling! It seems to be a harsh wakeup call when we do something as obvious as adjusting store hours, but sometimes the obvious needs to be brought to light. If you own a business - Your number one job is customer service. If you can't serve your customer - When THEY need service - Not when YOU feel like it.

I understand staffing issues, I understand there are times when it is just not feasible to stay open to serve 1 or 2 customers. That makes sense. What does not make sense are the countless retail outlets that keep business hours as if THEY were the DMV. I'm sorry but 9am - 6pm Monday through Friday and 3 hours on Saturday do not accommodate most people’s schedules. Would it make sense for all gas stations to only be open from Midnight - 5am? No... If all did that, and suddenly one kept other hours - that gas station would likely have 10x more business than the stores that were not open to accommodate the other drivers.
There is one furniture store that absolutely baffles me with their hours - They are closed after 6pm every day, and completely closed on Sunday. Most people furniture shop in the evening after work and on the weekends! I can only imagine the millions of dollars they are losing, not to mention the countless potential customers they are upsetting when they pull into the parking lot only to find a "closed" sign in the door. If you are a retail outlet - Don't be that store! Don't make excuses for your less than perfect hours!

Find reasons to connect with your customers when they want to connect with you! You will be amazed what you have been missing!

There has been allot of talk and posts out there over the last 5 years about "only checking your email once or twice a day" to be productive. This may work for you if you are EXTREMENLY HANDS OFF with your business, but it won’t work if you rely on communicating with the people who run it, or the customers who support it. Now... you not only need to have a finger on the pulse of your inbox, you need to have it on twitter, face book, and the load of other social networks out there - because guess what - your customers are there too. And they are talking about what they need from you.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that just because you own a business - you now have a free ticket to do anything you want whenever you want. See a great YouTube video? Hell... You are your own boss, spend the next 3 hours sharing it when friends! Then - Go to lunch for 2 hours! What could possibly go wrong?

ALOT could go wrong. All the emails that have been coming in are starting to pile up, the urgent voicemails are going unanswered, and the notes that your front desk left you are not being replied to. Now your employees are doing "what they think is right". Only for you to find out in four days that everything is in a major bind. Which in turn: You get frustrated, and escape back to the links. Bottom line - Unless you are truly a hands-off owner. You need to be a part of the daily activates.

Running a business is not easy. Running a business effectively and successfully is even more difficult. How do you tackle all the headaches? Organization! If you can easily access the solutions to the questions that come your way - you will be amazed at just how much you can handle in one hour. I love Outlook. In fact - I live by it. I have my color coordinated "to-do" list down to a Science, and I check it every hour. I'm constantly moving things around to when they need to get done, today, tomorrow or three months from now. Every day I run across things that posted as a reminder to myself months ago, if I had not been organized I would have missed the opportunities. The same goes for all emails, calls, leads, tweets questions and interactions you have with your staff and customers. Every single interaction is an opportunity. Either for a sale (today, next week, or next year) or to build a stronger business through your employees. Identify the opportunity and make it happen. Small or big.

When you’re playing an active, organized and effective part in what you love (your business... assuming you love it - if not end it now). You will find much more satisfaction than any day on the links. It all starts with keeping an eye on the road, and it starts with your inbox.

I’m someone who works my ass off to help business owners reach their potential customers. I go through every door, look behind every corner, and under every rock for the best places for a business to scream out to their customers “HERE I AM, COME AND GET ME!”. When I’m going through this process, I do a A LOT of calling to radio, TV and web properties. There is nothing that baffles me more, than when these entities have very few – or NO ways to contact them on their websites. I understand it a little more when the start-up business who is not in the communications business overlooks this MAJOR step, but come on – radio, TV, web – ALL IN THE COMMUNICATIONS BUSIENSS!

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve clicked on “Contact us” only to find a blank page OR simply a list of names with no email links or phone numbers. Come on people! If your customer has to go through 25 steps to find an email address or phone number – chances are they will be calling the competition at that point. Why is it so difficult to create an easy way for your customers – your very life blood to flow?!? Especially when I hear the people behind the curtain complain about a lack of “new business”. Yes advertising is down everywhere, but you’re also basically putting up a 20 foot brick wall around your business when you don’t have your contact info ready for your customers to see.

Most people are not going to your website to read your “company history” or read about the “insert company name here : difference” . Chances are they know what they are looking for, did a Google search – found you – now they simply want a way to TALK TO YOU – or EMAIL you a question. Make sure they can do it easily!

It seems like a no brainer - but I’ve heard every excuse in the book as to why there is no contact info out. The biggest one – “I don’t want to get spammed”. Guess what… no one does. But if you also don’t want customers to contact you – DEAL WITH THE SPAM. It’s just the cost of doing business. If you are a business who receives checks in the mail, are you also going to cut down your mail box simply because you don’t want another credit card offer, letting the post office send all those checks back to sender?

Then I hear the “We’re in the yellow pages”… Guess what – Your customers stopped using the yellow pages in 1998. So a lot of good that does you.

And then the “If they really need to get in touch with me, they will find a way”. My answer to that is simply – Yes. You are right… Once they finally run into you at a function, or at the quick mart tell you about how they really want to work with you but that YOU lost their business because they couldn’t get in touch with you.